


The Other Side Of Things

by MultiFandomGirl



Category: Throne of Glass Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-24
Updated: 2015-03-24
Packaged: 2018-03-19 09:52:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3605781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MultiFandomGirl/pseuds/MultiFandomGirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What Chaol may have been thinking as he fell asleep next to Celaena in the temple.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Other Side Of Things

**I do not own the Throne of Glass Series! All credits go to Sarah J. Maas, author of the series I love so much. Takes place in book #1, Chaol's POV of the temple nap scene. May turn this into some type of exaggerated two-shot. Let me know what you think!**

 

**///**

 

He didn't look at Celaena. Chaol tried desperately to focus on something, to be interested in the dreadfully boring ceremony going on around him, to perhaps distract himself from the persistent, bone aching exhaustion weighing down his entire body. The constant training with Sardothien must have been wearing him down more than he realized. He shook his head slightly, scolding himself for getting too comfortable, too out of shape. Something so simple as training wouldn't have had him this tired a year ago.

Though perhaps, he mused, retreating farther away from the distraction of the real world, it was just because it was Celaena; she was Adarlan's Assassin, after all. What creature wouldn't be worn out after being in the company of such a woman every day, all day long? Oh, she was as insufferable as anyone he'd ever met; always threatening to kill and maim and torture—all with that devious look in her eyes to prove that she meant what she was saying—but then there were times like this. When the assassin that grown men backed away from in fear, who had a reputation as the most feral killing machine in all of Erilea—when _Celaena Sardothien_ —acted nothing more than an overgrown and impatient child.

  _Gods give me the strength,_ Chaol had thought that morning, when he'd met the assassin outside of her rooms and she'd grinned at him with her vermillion teeth. He'd paused in the hallway a few feet away from her, studying her with narrowed eyes. Finally, he'd broken the silence, and had asked her whose life-force she had sucked up that morning—perhaps Cain's? Though it was a joke, and a joke he probably shouldn't have been sharing with Cain's fellow contestant, Chaol felt rewarded when Celaena had laughed, before sticking her tongue out at him for his mocking—and he saw that her tongue was red as well, from Yulemas candies, no doubt. This woman represented the grandest contradiction he'd ever encountered, but he couldn't seem to stop himself from being her friend, even though every shred of his common sense screamed for him to stop. But that wasn't going to happen, Chaol was realizing, because there was something else, something stronger than common sense that didn't just scream, but _roared_ , pounding through his blood, growing stronger every time he saw her face.

Chaol wasn't sure what it meant, but knew that buried underneath his caution was terror of what this would amount to; he sometimes thought there was fire traveling through his veins, and he was bound to one day explode, obliterated into little pieces never to be put back together again.

 Surfacing from his heavy thoughts, he was even more tired than he had been before, and stressed now, too. As the ceremony continued on void of his attention, Chaol glanced over at Celaena, not entirely shocked to see her eyelids drooping, her head bobbing slightly up and down as she tried to keep it raised. Poor girl was _trying_ to stay awake, at least. Chaol sighed heavily, and it felt good. He hung his head back against the pew and closed his eyes briefly, bringing his hand up to massage the bridge of his nose between two callused fingers. What was he going to do? He remembered when life had settled into something almost ordinary, before the King had decided to throw this foolish contest. Before Celaena Sardothien had come into their lives, stirring up things like _affection_ in Chaol's heart, when he was supposed to feel hatred.

 

Chaol's last thoughts before he unintentionally drifted off on the wings of sleep were that, for better or for worse, she was a part of his personal life now, and part of Dorian's too, it seemed, and there was nothing Chaol could have done to stop it, if he really even wanted to anymore. The stress still lingering in his mind seemed to vanish like dust being blown off an old book, when, somewhere in the back of his unconscious mind, Chaol became aware of Celaena's head plopping down onto his shoulder, his body relaxing immediately in response to her touch. As his head came to gently rest on hers and one of his slack hands found her knee, Chaol nuzzled into her hair, having the best rest he'd received in ages.

The last coherent thought to form in Chaol's mind was that maybe—maybe Celaena Sardothien wasn't all too bad, when you got to know her.

 


End file.
